The paradise unrestrained capitalism offers gets ever closer... For pardon the expression the parasites. For us hahaha no.
Sidebar: apparently there’s also an issue of travel books on Amazon written by AI, again using actual authors’ names. Of course, using AI to fake Dr. Chuck Tingle works would be going much too far...
My dotard theory is that, at least for the near to midterm future, AI won’t and can’t be better than the people developing it. OTOH, that day will come.
A second dotard theory: all the major tech developments have happened and now the VCs are desperate to push anything, no matter how crappy, to try and score again. So crap gets hyped and here we are.
I read about this author’s complaints to Amazon and I’m glad this time the issue was resolved in her favor. But it seems obvious this will happen again to others, especially ebook writers who flourish on Amazon. I can also see complaints a book is fraudulent being used as a means of harassment, causing an author’s legitimate product to be flagged as possible AI.
Also, I can’t help recalling a simpler time when we were merely worried automation would replace physical labor and displace those workers, as opposed to this endeavor to render human thought and creativity itself redundant.
Maybe AI is responsible for those logic and fact challenged op-ed pieces in the NYT and WaPo, like that Jack Goldsmith exercise in both-siderism. Or perhaps “I didn’t write those racist tweets, AI did!” will become the way assholes like Hanania excuse their exposed opinions.
Neither new nor AI-specific. There's a "Stephen King" who publishes Kindle books. I assume it's his legal name and that's how he gets away with it. His writing is . . . well, nothing to write home about, so I'd bet the people he suckers make up most of his sales.
We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, 'What is real?' Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms.
“Schools in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa Bay and the surrounding area, are mostly assigning excerpts by the English language’s most famous writer. The schools previously required students to read two of Shakespeare’s novels or plays, in their entirety, per year.
The decision comes as educators must prepare students for a new set of state exams that cover a wide variety of subject matter, and also, “in consideration of the law,” according to a school district spokesperson, which means teaching it could open educators up to disciplinary measures if a parent were to file a complaint.
The “law” in question is the new Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits teaching any content that is sexual in nature.“
In a way, this is just the next step in something that's been going on for ages. I have written or co-authored three books. But the last time I checked, Google says I've written FOUR books. The fourth was, indeed, "written" by me: A publisher I used to work for compiled a bunch of articles I had written over the years and cranked it out as a book with my name on it. No royalties for me, and not even a courtesy note to say "Hey! We just published this doorstop with your name on it."
While the AI thing adds another dimension, there are legions of publishers who have been buying articles from freelancers and forcing those writers to sign "all-rights" contracts. As AI advances, I wonder which genius publisher is going to be the first to slip in a clause that says the author no longer owns the rights to their own name and the publisher can generate AI titles endlessly and claim the turd was written by "award-winning author Derelict."
The day will come for each of us when HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors. My last two jobs featured a lot of people getting pushed out by automation. In the first case that included me. After that, I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering when the shoe was going to drop right on my head. It did not motivate me to greater productivity.
Two days ago, I had a surrealistic go round with an A.I. chatbot, who at least assigned a tech to deal with my fucked copper phone line. I asked the tech if he knew a phone number where I could speak to an actual human who gave an actual shit about helping customers with problems. Complex or otherwise. Nope.
I can absolutely understand how frightened the creatives are. And that may provide a bit of a silver lining. They have the ability to articulate the angst and fear the rest of us mortals face. It may not work, but at least they can go down swinging.
I suspect that all those "why remote work is bad and everybody should get back to the office like fifteen minutes ago" pieces polluting my news feed are AI generated. Must be getting lonely stuck in the office like a ... well. Like a machine 😉
In my historical research on one aspect of US industrial history, I recently wrote about one of the key lawsuits that saw trademark law pivot from being about protecting the consumer from fake products, to protecting trademark owners from fake producers. This happened in the mid-19th-century before the first national trademark laws in 1870 and 1876, back when trademarks were registered and enforced at the state level.
I see another major watershed in trademark law coming with this recent development in fakery. Now one can fake a product without even needing to have any skill. At least when the American Cyclopedia would wholesale copy the Encyclopedia Britannica in the late 1800s, they had to at least re-create the maps (which caused them no end of trouble) and re-typeset it all, and the content was mostly good (except where they had to add in American topics not covered in the original.)
One interesting development in AI they're discovering is that the more computer-generated content enters the ecosystem, and then gets sucked up by these AI systems in their learning, it greatly harms the output. In other words, when AIs learn from AI-generated content, their content gets significantly worse. Seems like we've been saying "Garbage In Garbage Out" for a long time. Long live GIGO.
"Friedman says she filed an infringement report through Amazon’s official form as soon as she discovered the books and received an automated response."
If not now, then sometime soon that "automated response" may come from the very bot that wrote the phony books, or maybe one of their A.I. friends.
"I don’t think LaFrance is dealing in bad faith, or unperceptive..."
Forget it Jake, it's The Atlantic.
I guess our "thought leaders" are just taking it as given that mere laws would be useless here, a case of King Canute commanding the tides. So just pull up your socks and work harder, we'll out-compete those machines yet! Bullshit. Giving up on the main tool we use to regulate human behavior (and especially commercial behavior) is just stupid fatalism, of the sort that conservatives have always engaged in.
The paradise unrestrained capitalism offers gets ever closer... For pardon the expression the parasites. For us hahaha no.
Sidebar: apparently there’s also an issue of travel books on Amazon written by AI, again using actual authors’ names. Of course, using AI to fake Dr. Chuck Tingle works would be going much too far...
My dotard theory is that, at least for the near to midterm future, AI won’t and can’t be better than the people developing it. OTOH, that day will come.
A second dotard theory: all the major tech developments have happened and now the VCs are desperate to push anything, no matter how crappy, to try and score again. So crap gets hyped and here we are.
I read about this author’s complaints to Amazon and I’m glad this time the issue was resolved in her favor. But it seems obvious this will happen again to others, especially ebook writers who flourish on Amazon. I can also see complaints a book is fraudulent being used as a means of harassment, causing an author’s legitimate product to be flagged as possible AI.
Also, I can’t help recalling a simpler time when we were merely worried automation would replace physical labor and displace those workers, as opposed to this endeavor to render human thought and creativity itself redundant.
Maybe AI is responsible for those logic and fact challenged op-ed pieces in the NYT and WaPo, like that Jack Goldsmith exercise in both-siderism. Or perhaps “I didn’t write those racist tweets, AI did!” will become the way assholes like Hanania excuse their exposed opinions.
Neither new nor AI-specific. There's a "Stephen King" who publishes Kindle books. I assume it's his legal name and that's how he gets away with it. His writing is . . . well, nothing to write home about, so I'd bet the people he suckers make up most of his sales.
We live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups. I ask, in my writing, 'What is real?' Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms.
- Phillip K Dick
High on acid, 50 years or so ago
" Everything you know is wrong"
Firesign Theatre. 49 years ago.
Hostility to the humanities in action:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/shakespeare-cut-florida-schools-desantis-agenda-1234802500/
“Schools in Hillsborough County, which includes Tampa Bay and the surrounding area, are mostly assigning excerpts by the English language’s most famous writer. The schools previously required students to read two of Shakespeare’s novels or plays, in their entirety, per year.
The decision comes as educators must prepare students for a new set of state exams that cover a wide variety of subject matter, and also, “in consideration of the law,” according to a school district spokesperson, which means teaching it could open educators up to disciplinary measures if a parent were to file a complaint.
The “law” in question is the new Parental Rights in Education Act, which prohibits teaching any content that is sexual in nature.“
'corporations don’t give a shit, and indeed are “already memorizing the platitudes necessary to wave away the critics.” '
This right here is why IT ALL WORKS. Il fascisti wingtipo pre-select the outcome via the handwave of despair.
In a way, this is just the next step in something that's been going on for ages. I have written or co-authored three books. But the last time I checked, Google says I've written FOUR books. The fourth was, indeed, "written" by me: A publisher I used to work for compiled a bunch of articles I had written over the years and cranked it out as a book with my name on it. No royalties for me, and not even a courtesy note to say "Hey! We just published this doorstop with your name on it."
While the AI thing adds another dimension, there are legions of publishers who have been buying articles from freelancers and forcing those writers to sign "all-rights" contracts. As AI advances, I wonder which genius publisher is going to be the first to slip in a clause that says the author no longer owns the rights to their own name and the publisher can generate AI titles endlessly and claim the turd was written by "award-winning author Derelict."
The day will come for each of us when HAL refuses to open the pod bay doors. My last two jobs featured a lot of people getting pushed out by automation. In the first case that included me. After that, I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering when the shoe was going to drop right on my head. It did not motivate me to greater productivity.
Two days ago, I had a surrealistic go round with an A.I. chatbot, who at least assigned a tech to deal with my fucked copper phone line. I asked the tech if he knew a phone number where I could speak to an actual human who gave an actual shit about helping customers with problems. Complex or otherwise. Nope.
I can absolutely understand how frightened the creatives are. And that may provide a bit of a silver lining. They have the ability to articulate the angst and fear the rest of us mortals face. It may not work, but at least they can go down swinging.
I suspect that all those "why remote work is bad and everybody should get back to the office like fifteen minutes ago" pieces polluting my news feed are AI generated. Must be getting lonely stuck in the office like a ... well. Like a machine 😉
" - that perfect dystopian tone and holds the form of its anti-logic parabola perfectly -"
I hold this phrase in high admiration.
I just got a call " Hey -Do you want to sit in on this budget meeting?"
" I would, but I'm busy discussing the nature of reality with my online friends"
- Pause -
" OK we'll be in the downstairs conference room if you can get free,"
These writers should stop whining. They’re getting valuable exposure without even having to pay for it. Welcome to the photographer’s world.
In my historical research on one aspect of US industrial history, I recently wrote about one of the key lawsuits that saw trademark law pivot from being about protecting the consumer from fake products, to protecting trademark owners from fake producers. This happened in the mid-19th-century before the first national trademark laws in 1870 and 1876, back when trademarks were registered and enforced at the state level.
I see another major watershed in trademark law coming with this recent development in fakery. Now one can fake a product without even needing to have any skill. At least when the American Cyclopedia would wholesale copy the Encyclopedia Britannica in the late 1800s, they had to at least re-create the maps (which caused them no end of trouble) and re-typeset it all, and the content was mostly good (except where they had to add in American topics not covered in the original.)
One interesting development in AI they're discovering is that the more computer-generated content enters the ecosystem, and then gets sucked up by these AI systems in their learning, it greatly harms the output. In other words, when AIs learn from AI-generated content, their content gets significantly worse. Seems like we've been saying "Garbage In Garbage Out" for a long time. Long live GIGO.
"Friedman says she filed an infringement report through Amazon’s official form as soon as she discovered the books and received an automated response."
If not now, then sometime soon that "automated response" may come from the very bot that wrote the phony books, or maybe one of their A.I. friends.
“tapping a ‘Like’ button is not friendship”
Anybody who spouts dimestore profundities like this ought to be forced to run laps as punishment, like in grade school PE.
"I don’t think LaFrance is dealing in bad faith, or unperceptive..."
Forget it Jake, it's The Atlantic.
I guess our "thought leaders" are just taking it as given that mere laws would be useless here, a case of King Canute commanding the tides. So just pull up your socks and work harder, we'll out-compete those machines yet! Bullshit. Giving up on the main tool we use to regulate human behavior (and especially commercial behavior) is just stupid fatalism, of the sort that conservatives have always engaged in.